Holiday Brings Business for Local Donut Shops

by Lisa Christensen

June 8, 2015

Utahns got into the spirit of the holiday by buying a hole lot of donuts Friday.

National Donut Day, celebrated June 5, prompted many to head to bakeries and donut shops. At Banbury Cross, a line of people waiting to get into the Salt Lake City shop snaked around the building, while cars waiting to go through the store’s drive-through lined up through the parking lot and down 700 East.

“It’s our busiest day of the year—well, maybe Halloween is busier, but not by much,” said Banbury Cross owner Jeff Morrow. “Too bad this couldn’t have been on a Monday. Friday we’re really quite busy.”

While there’s no fool-proof way to prepare for a holiday dedicated to the primary item one’s business sells, Morrow said.

“I feel bad for people standing outside in the rain waiting to even get in. I wish we could make donuts faster,” he said. “We put on extra staff, but you can’t make donuts ahead because then they wouldn’t be fresh. Everybody here is going to get fresh donuts; the only thing is we can only make them so fast.”

The extra employees were scheduled to both help at the busy counter and to keep churning out batches upon batches of donuts to keep the shelves stocked. Each batch of raised donuts takes an hour and a half to make from ingredients to glazing, and he said the process was constant to keep up with demand.

Morrow said the store baked double the donuts it usually did on Friday, which is its busiest day.

Business was hopping at Dunford Bakery in West Jordan, too. Dennis Dahle, operations manager for Dunford, said aside from Halloween, National Donut Day was as busy as it gets—especially this year.

“We’ve had a hard time keeping up today. It’s been very difficult, but it’s been very fun,” he said. “Every year we prepare for it and start a little earlier for it, and sales are up, but this year’s been bigger than before. It’s been busy.”

Dahle said he thought word of mouth and a discussions on local radio stations about the holiday helped make this year bigger than previous years. He said the bakery had put out 600 dozen donuts an hour—two or three times the normal amount of donuts to keep up with the crowd—and customers were still packed in the store late into the afternoon, hours after business normally died down.

At Fresh Donut and Deli in Salt Lake City, workers put out fresh batches of donuts every 15 minutes during what manager Brenda Le called the busiest day of the year. While the tides of freshly baked pastries never seemed to meet demand, Le said customers were understanding of the delays and patiently waited for new batches to be finished.

“People are patient today. They can wait for the good donuts. They get online and they just know that we’re working hard to be fast for them,” she said.